The Best Kind of Chaos

 Marketplace Day

Tuesday started out poorly. Backing my fun car out of the garage, I hit the rearview mirror on the side of the garage door hard enough that it broke... not off, but enough that it wouldn't just snap back into place as with previous similar occurrences. I would love to blame the mishap on my new progressive lenses, but the truth is I suffer from a lack of depth perception every day. I pulled the purple car back into the garage and moved my bags and mugs over to the minivan, feeling more comfortable driving in commute traffic on the freeway in a car with a complete set of functional mirrors.

Thankfully, this was not a sign of things to come. It was Marketplace Day in the fourth grade. The idea for a marketplace came from students in my partner teacher's classroom. As we began reading Lunch Money by Andrew Clements in conjunction with our unit on economy, a student question turned into an idea for a new summative assessment. We created a rubric as students were deciding on products and creating their businesses. 

I was a step behind my partner teacher in getting my students prepped for the big day because he ran with the student's idea the day the question was asked. But we brainstormed, students self-selected their business partners, and created business plans complete with a task list and person responsible for the action item before Marketplace Day.

Then I got sick. The week my students were using class time to prep for Marketplace Day, I was in and out of urgent care, asleep on the couch, and so sick with infected diverticulitis that ripping carnival tickets (for Marketplace Day) necessitated a three-hour nap. I wrote sub plans as best as I could while I was really not functional and linked the rubric into the slideshow. I hoped and prayed for the best as I took yet another nap.

Students who did not travel for spring break had that time to continue to create units of their product to sell. Monday was the first day back after spring break. I was not well on Monday - moving slowly and probably suffering from the decimation of the microbiome in my gut from the two ridiculously strong antibiotics that kicked the infection out. 

I had the students focus on brainstorming activities for the written reflection that was the last item on the rubric, and the activity that the teachers covering for me (primarily from my school's staff) had not gotten to during my absence. My students told me, when asked, that they had not looked at the rubric since before I got sick. The staff members who covered for me assured me that was not the case, but given that was the student perception, it was worrisome on the eve of the big day. 

There was also time to meet with groups to finalize plans and do a preliminary set up of booths. I checked in with each group and asked them if they felt ready for the 200+ students whose teachers had signed up to attend. Most seemed overwhelmed at the idea of so many potential customers.

I decided there wasn't much I could do at this point to change the trajectory of the first ever Fourth Grade Marketplace. I gave each group as much encouragement as possible but also asked them to plan for how they could ensure they would have enough units in stock to have something to offer the final class of the day. We brainstormed holding back some units of product and raising prices.

After my car mishap on Tuesday morning, I arrived at school without further incident. I ripped more carnival tickets for a class of preschoolers who signed up on Monday evening and would be our last class of the day, and handed out 20 tickets per student to each teacher who had signed up. Every shopper would have $5.00 worth of tickets to spend. My students arrived with supplies and energy.

The day was an amazing success. Students had products ranging from jewelry and vinyl decals to lemonade and brownies. At least two groups had created Google Site websites and taken preorders from students. Some were offering discounts for students who came with coupons that had been posted around the building in my absence. None of my students' businesses ran out of product until the very last class, the late sign-up preschool class, came through. Although, during the break when fourth graders could shop, I did have one student creating more product for his booth, and one booth resorted to selling whipped cream on a napkin when they ran out of brownies and plates.

During the day, I felt like I sat on a student desk, pushed out of the way in the front of the room, during most of the action. But my smartwatch told a different story. Even though I was still recovering from a fairly severe illness, I took over 9,000 steps. Whoops. But in reality, my students created the first ever fourth grade marketplace on their own. Really. I was not in the building during their prep and my lesson on Monday seemed to freak them out more than help them prepare for the big day.

Feedback from the teachers who came through was nothing but positive. They told me how excited their kids were to attend Marketplace Day, how impressed they were with the products for sale, and how happy the students were with their purchases. The products sold had real value for their customer base, which included many teachers. The middle school schedule did not allow the seventh and eighth graders in the building to attend. Their teachers informed me they were sad they could not attend. Middle school students were sad that they could not come to a fourth-grade event. WOW.

One teacher in the building purchased a fold out drawing from two of my students and took it home to her toddler. She sent me a video of her daughter playing with the picture: unfolding the shark and roaring when the teeth inside a gaping mouth come into view. The boys who created the drawing turned red, grinned, and gave each other thumbs up when I showed them the video,

I had one parent helper who was in the room for the entire Marketplace Day. He cleaned up spills, picked up dropped products for buyers over encumbered by their purchases, collected random debris and threw it away, and took over booths for students who needed to use the restroom or wanted to shop for themselves. As our final class of preschoolers left for the other fourth grade classroom, he told me, "That was the best kind of chaos." Indeed, it was.

My students had so much fun and learned so much about economics. They were not upset in the slightest that they had to man their booths during their morning recess and commented on how quickly the day went by. The first ever Fourth Grade Marketplace Day was a roaring success that I really can't take much credit for.